


Moira Stone and the Unlit Pyre

by grettaconroy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Death Eaters, F/M, Hogwarts, Ilvermorny, Ireland, Mystery, Ravenclaw, Slow Burn, this is me trying to get over my bill issues, this is my first attempt at a fanfic don't @ me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 15:58:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14772689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grettaconroy/pseuds/grettaconroy
Summary: Moira Stone's parents were killed by Death Eaters when she was a child, herself spared only because she had been sent to a safe house shortly before their arrival. Since their loss, Moira has lived in Massachusetts with her maternal aunt, who has been employed by MACUSA. When her aunt is suddenly offered a position too good to refuse back at the Ministry, Moira uproots her life, leaving her friends at Ilvermorny to transfer to Hogwarts for her 6th year, where she'll be faced with uncovering a mystery and how it connects to the secrets her parents left behind.





	1. A Break with Fate (Prologue)

Something was seriously amiss at Gray’s End. Outside the street was quiet, no cars jostling over the cobblestone streets in the shady corner of the quaint village, no neighbors milling about on their lawns or having a late evening walk. There were no signs of life, even though it was summer’s end and the days were longer, sunlight lingering with a grand auld stretch so that the children filled the streets well after their normal curfews.  


Inside the cottage at 27 Kildare Place Daphne Stone sat in the kitchen, gazing out the window into the empty streets, a sense of forboding knotted in her stomach. This knot was nothing new, not with the news stories that came in every day, each one worse than the next, but it had tightened today and sat uneasily and unbudgingly behind her navel. Normally she would be out on the front lawn right now, watching Moira play with the other children in the neighborhood—ok as long as she was careful, which she always was, but Daphne still liked to keep an eye on things. Just in case. It was so east to forget sometimes, especially for children. On usual nights Rion would be there, too, sitting on the front steps reading the paper or briefs from the office, glancing up every so often to see what Moira was doing, that grin that had been so absent in recent years lighting up his tired face, giving her a flash of the carefree boy she had fallen in love with. It was moments like that which Daphne looked forward to the most. The little things that almost made you forget reality. Almost.  


But tonight there were none of those moments. Just hours ago she’d been at the hearth, desperate, that feeling in the depths of her gut telling her something was wrong. Rion had insisted—still at the office, neck deep in crises happening in the southern counties—that it was just her imagination. That even if someone did want to hurt them, it was next to impossible. Not with the precautions they and the Ministry had taken. No way, and he’d be home soon. They could talk about it together.  


Still.  


The thought had persisted, gnawing at her, until she found herself crouched again in front of her fireplace, whispering fervently as Moira played with a toy boom behind her, toes skimming the carpet. Daphne choked back tears as her worries spilled out of her. The reassuring voice from the other end soothing her worst fears and offering a momentary solution, which she had accepted with a grateful smile on her tear-streaked face.  


When Rion came home he found her sitting there at the table, still staring out the window, as if in a trance.  


“Daph?”  


She looked up, startled, daze broken. He set his briefcase on the counter and gave her a peck on the cheek. She wondered when he’d gotten so old. Or rather, when he started looking so old. The youthful, haphazardly enthusiastic boy, eager to take on the world, that she’d married 9 years ago had vanished in recent years, visiting occasionally but always sliding back behind that somber mask and prematurely greying hair.  


“How were things at work?” she asked, knowing the answer already.  


“We lost Dervish today. In a raid in County Carlow, near the McTavish Manor.” His face stayed striaght as he said it. They’d known Dervish for over 15 years, since they were kids at school. “Everyone else got out, but Wigglesworth is going to lose an eye with the curse she got hit with. Nothing to do for it.”  


Daphne listened without comment, but reached out and grabbed her husband’s hand. He had turned away, but continued to talk, repeating the same horrors he did every night but with the names of different friends and acquaintances filled in, like some kind of macabre MadLib. It made her glad she’d quit working after she had Moira. They didn’t need the money, not with what her parents had left her and with what Rion made at his job. It meant she had time to keep an eye on Moira and her studies, and to be of a help elsewhere, when needed.  


“Where’s my little one?” Rion asked, eyes lighting up for the first time since he’d gotten home.  


He watched his wife bite her lip, registered the guilt in her eyes.  


“Daphne, where is she?”  


Daphne broke down, tears streaming from her dark eyes, flowing over the dark half moons beneath them.  


“I didn’t know what to do, Rion.” Her voice was pleading. “Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it. I know you said to wait and I tried but I couldn’t I—” her voice broke off, and her husband’s anger subsided, guilt overtaking him for even questioning her doing what she felt was best for their daughter.  


“Hey,” he said, face softening as it always did at his wife’s tears, crouching so their faces were level, taking hers in his hands. “Hey. Look at me. It’s ok. You did the right thing. You trusted your instincts. If nothing else, she’ll have a sleepover with the kids.” He kissed her hand. “I’m sorry I was angry. I just don’t like us to be separated, not with…everything. It makes it feel like we’re less in control.”  


They left it at that, not discussing the day’s events any further as they sat down to dinner. That was the rule in the house. If you let it, it would overtake you. Boundaries had to be set. Life had to go on as normal as possible, or else they'd all go insane.  


“I was thinking about going to visit your aunt for a few weeks. Just to take a little break. Maybe let Moira stay with her for awhile, until things get under control. Fergal is ok with it, I checked—just to be sure,” he added, when Daphne gave him an annoyed look. “It might be good to—”  


He cut off, distracted by a loud blast at the front of the house.  


“Stay here,” he hissed, pushing her under the table, the lights in the room vanishing with a silent wave of his wand. She watched as he slipped away toward the noise, forcing the feeling of panic to subside, to become manageable.  


Muffled voices echoed from the main room, two of them too low to make out, just mumblings, one cutting high and sharp and feminine above the rest.  


“…none of your friends here to help you this time, Stone.”  


A chill ran down her spine. She knew that voice. And she knew what it meant.  


Daphne grabbed her wand, ignoring the voice in her head telling her to hide, to run, that if she went now she could escape. Holding it out in front of her as she crawled across the wooden floor towards the voices, she let out a silent prayer of thanks that Moira had been sent away. That she was somewhere safe. If she went to her now they might follow her. She wasn’t going to let that happen.  


“Crucio!” rang out out in the woman’s voice, gleeful laughter overcome by screams of anguish.  


Daphne stood, all rational thought leaving her head, and charged in. The figures were in cloaks, black hoods drawn to hide their faces save for the woman’s, snakelike tendrils of hair floating around her pale face, eyes wide with rapture turning now to Daphne.  


“Well, if it isn’t the teacher’s pet, all grown up,” the woman said, flashing a grin. “I always hoped it would get to be me.”  


Daphne steeled herself, looking at the crumpled form of her husband on the ground, sweaty hand clutching her wand. He looked at her with the same golden eyes he’d passed on to their daughter, imporing her to leave.  


"Wait." The hooded figure next to the woman stepped forward, placing a hand on her arm. She snarled at him, jerking it away, but her loomed over her, not backing down. "The Dark Lord wants her alive."

The woman's face contorted, and took a step toward Daphne, spitting at her feet. "You might be a traitor, but you're a smart traitor. And as much as I'd love to kill you here and now, my master sees a value in you." She gestured to the man. "Grab her." 

She steeled herself. She knew what she had to do. She'd known for years that this moment would come someday, that she'd have to pay for her foolishness, her misguided loyalty. She would face it now with a fight to the end. It was the least she could do.  


The man stepped to her, and she raised her wand.  


"Stop her!" the woman shrieked, lurching forward, wand drawn in a panic. But it was too late.

Daphne's head filled in that fleeting moment, memories overtaking her. Her childhood room, the scent of her other baking drifting up the stairs. Elizabeth hexing her to make hair grow out of her nostrils when she ruined her favorite robes. The first time she saw Rion, dangling over the edge of a rowboat, peering curiously into the murky water. When she finally got to hold Moira for the first time, the fear and hope that simultaneously consumed her as she watched her grow. How at least she was safe now.  


She pointed her wand at herself. And then the thoughts ceased.  


The house filled with a flash of emerald light and a howl of anger, then another blinding light.  


Everything went silent.


	2. The Girl Across the Sea

The summer had passed by in the blink of an eye. The two-story whitewashed farm house sat undisturbed on the edge of the lake—which had turned a thick, mossy green as it always did this time of year—trees from the thick wood surrounding it beginning to lose their lush green hue and tinge into shades of red and orange. A crow sat high in the crooked oak, surveying the scene below, wind rippling gently across the water’s surface. The dirt road was silent and undisturbed, weighted down by the night’s unexpected rainfall. 

The residents of the village down the lane still called it “The Witch’s House”, even though it had, for the past 150 years, belonged to the Eyre’s. For the people of the village it was less a title of fear or belief in anything magical—for in the modern age all of that hysteria, even in this part of the world, had been dispersed—as it was a reflection on the history of the region. The early years of settlement had been ones of persecution and prejudice for early residents unfortunate enough to be so disliked or so odd that they were made targets of the accusations. Of course, the many witch hunts and hangings never resulted in the deaths of any actual witches, just the unfortunate no-majs who found themselves facing the angry mob. 

Ironically, as the world would have it, the current owner was, in fact, a witch. The house had belonged for some time to Elizabeth Eyre’s American side of the family, and, upon her Great-Uncle Hiberius’—who had gotten great joy out of holding tours of the properties “witch cellar” and scaring the no-majs witless by momentarily trapping them and conjouring a spector— death, it passed to her. Having caught wind of the troubles happening on the continent, it didn’t take Elizabeth long to bid her family farewell after graduation and cross the oceanto find work where there was much less fear for her life, even if she couldn’t convince her sister to see sense and come with her. Elizabeth lived there quite happily—if not a little lonely, though she would never admit it— for a number of years before the news arrived.

She didn’t like to think of those times, when even an ocean away the fear was palpable in the air. She knew what it said before she opened the letter, written in the shaky scrawl on tear-strained parchment. She had been dreading it for months. Years, even. That was why she had tried so hard to convince them to move. There were plenty of jobs at MACUSA, they were always looking for skilled workers, and it was safer here. They didn’t have the same problems Europe did, she’d told them that thousands of times. Nothing wrong with Ireland or the U.K., but the U.S. was the future. Plain and simple. But did her stupid, headstrong, loyal sister listen to her? No.  
“We can’t just leave when our friends and family are in need, Liz,” she had said the first—and every—time Elizabeth brought it up.  


She could never understand that type of loyalty, the fierce belief in something to risk everything for an idea, a chance that seemed doomed to failure. The kind of loyalty that had gotten her and her husband killed, and landed their daughter orphaned on her doorstep, all for a cause that she’d only committed to fully after marrying her head in the clouds husband.  


Their daughter was sitting on the edge of her bed right now, staring at a handful of boxes around her. Some were open, clothes and books and plates and pictures poking out the top. Others were sealed and labeled with things like “potion ingredients”, “vials”, and “spellbooks”, each one stuffed much more full of odds and ends than any box should have been able to hold.  


On a hook on the wall hung her old robes, the red and golden emblem glinting at her, as if to say, don’t forget me!  


It was more difficult than she’d thought, leaving. Right now her friends would all be getting their supply lists, making plans to meet up and go shopping in the city, maybe make a day of it and go to the beach to Pandora’s Paradise Pier—the only amusement park exclusively for wizards and witches in the states. Her mouth watered just thinking about the No-Melt Lemon Fizz cone she got every year and Florentia always stole licks from when she wasn’t looking. Now it occured to her that she might never go there again. She might never see the park lit up at night with thousands of floating orbs in all colors, casting a warm glow on summer nights. She might never scream until she felt like puking on the Putnam, Flo gripping her hand so hard it nearly broke. Awkwardly giggling in a group, watching Ulysses Dorn and his friends strut around until they plucked up the courage to merge our groups and mill about the pier together.  


Elizabeth gave a stern flick of her wand and the rober threw itself into a box. “No need for that anymore.”  


Her eyes lingered on it for a moment.  


“How are we going to move all these?”  


“Magic,” Elizabeth replied, with a small tick at the corner of her mouth.  


Moira rolled her eyes. “Can we take them by floo?”  


Elizabeth considered, looking at the smattering of boxes.  


“Most of it’s going into storage,” she said finally. “No point in having doubles of everything. We can take the clothes and essentials with us, since the new place is furnished. Besides,” she added after thinking for a moment, “you won’t be there most of the year, and I’ll be at work most of the time anyway.”  


Moira’s stomach did a little summersault at the thought, nausea that she’d beaten back down daily resurfacing. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go—everyone talked about what it must be like there— it was just scary to be doing it now, at 16, when she would be the odd one out. What if she got there and they told her there’d been a mistake? That transfers weren’t actually a thing. Or that her grades weren’t good enough for their standards, or some of her classes didn’t transfer.  


Elizabeth had let out a sharp laugh when she’d brought up that concern, reminding her of the eleven O.W.L.’s she had earned, which was one more than her mother had gotten, and one less than Elizabeth herself had earned during her time at Hogwarts. Furthermore, she would find herself in the same academically mixed company—if not moreso—as she had at Ilvermorny. Some students were there solely to makeout in the hidden rooms and to fill the toilets with Filibuster’s wet starts. She would be a welcome addition.  


“Do you want that book out or in?” Elizbeth gestured at the book sitting on the bed beside Moira.  


She ran her hand over the ornate cover, tracing the letters (Fractures in the Future by Ulvania Storm). “I’ll keep it out.”  


Elizabeth rolled her eyes in disapproval. She’d made no bones as to where she and Ulvania—the Divination professor at Ilvermorny—stood. “Don’t buy into that crackpot theory. Ulvania is smart, and she can be convincing, but I always thought it was for the more…er…mystical students.”  


The tone of her mystical made it very clear she just as easily could have substituted “dillusional” or “stupid”.  


Moira shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t know. It’s interesting, though, isn’t it?” She leaned forward, looking at the book thoughtfully. “The idea that our choices dictate our lives in graver ways that we can see. Like you taking this new job. When you said yes, that opened up a new branch into time, where another Elizabeth said no. In another timeline I’d be packing to go back to Ilvermorny and you’d be dealing with the wrackspurt infestation in Lowell.”  


Elizabeth pursed her lips.  


“And that means that maybe there are lots of other timelines. Maybe there’s one where my parents didn’t die. Or where the war didn’t end, or where it wasn’t the Potters who were killed.”  


“Or there’s one where you all died,” Elizabeth said, voice harsher than she intended.  


Moira blinked at that, but it was true. Maybe there was one where the entire Stone family had been wiped from the Earth like had been intended. Maybe this was already an alternate timeline, and her existence had set things on a new course.  


“Moira, listen,” she said, voice softer, “it’s ok to read stuff like that, just don’t buy into it too much. You could spend you’re whole life wondering about what ifs. The important thing is that you’re here now, and your parents wouldn’t trade that for anything. Do you understand?”  


Moira nodded. She did understand. She could still remember the look on her mother’s face that afternoon when she’d sent her into the fire, out to the English countryside.  


To prove it, she dropped the book into the box and watched Elizabeth seal it up.  


“Good girl,” said Elizabeth with a smile. “Now help me carry these down to the shed.”

+++

The new house wasn’t what Moira had expected when her aunt told her she was going home. The house of her memory was bright and airy, pictures smiling from the walls, everything neat and tidy and cozy. There had always been the aroma of freshly baked cookies wafting through the house, though now with nine years between her and the memory she couldn’t recall if her mom had actually baked them, or if she’d enchanted it to make it smell that way.

Regardless, it was gone now and replaced with a damp, musky scent that made her wrinkle her nose in distaste. The house was dim and dusty, clearly unlived in for many years. Great white sheets covered the furniture, and the lights sparked defiantly when Elizabeth gave a wave of her wand. The fireplace was crumbling, and it was a miracle they’d been able to have it connected to the network in the first place. The wallpaper—once a quaint yellow and blue from ceiling to floor—was peeling from the walls, great chunks missing in some places, others gouged with what looked like claw marks. She leaned in closer to inspect one, finding it filled with tiny hairs, and a nail lodged in one streak.

Taking a glance around, Elizabeth cursed under her breath. “Lumos!”

The dim glow did little to illuminate the space around them, but sufficed until they had rounded up the candles and placed them strategically around the house. 

In the fuller light it was no more inspiring. The floors were covered with debris, looking as though someone had, at some point, found their way around the anti-intruder charms and made it their own personal villa.  
“We’ll work on this mess tomorrow,” Elizabeth said. “They were supposed to have the house ready for us. Assured me it’d be ready by the 25th. Just wait until I talk to their manager tomorrow, they’ll be…”

Moira’s brain switched to autopilot, sensing a rant coming on. Elizabeth was a good aunt, but god help anyone who crossed her, or who didn’t uphold their end of the bargain. “There’s nothing worse than an incompetent witch, Moira!” She could hear it in her head now. “Give the world in pinch, and they’ll take a handful, so never give them any reason to doubt your skill.” Maybe that’s why she’d recieved all O’s on her eleven subjects. Anything less—Elizabeth had gotten O’s in all TWELVE of her subjects, which she never let Moira forget—was unacceptable. It was that push that had kept her on track for her N.E.W.T.s this year, opening the possibility of her becoming an Auror (“You can’t be serious”, her aunt had said when she mentioned it once in passing. “How unacademic”.)

“…they’ll be the ones fixing this, and won’t get a galleon until they do.”

Moira looked up, sensing she was finished with the worst of it.

“Your room is upstairs,” she said, gesturing up the once ornate mahogany staircase that lead into the foyer. “First room on the left, I’m sure you remember. I tidied the upstairs when I was here last week, so it should be fine for the night. Get some rest.”

That was her cue to go, the window for conversation clearly shut. Moira took the hint and trudged up the stairs (tapping each cautiously before putting her full weight on it, a good thing since stairs 4, 9, and 12 bent alarmingly under the gentle nudge). When she reached the landing she felt a little spark of hope. It was brighter up here, even though the walls were an inky black, the torches they were lined with cast a pleasant glow on the rows of portraits lining the corridor. 

She paused in front of the one by her door. It held a middle-aged woman with a thin face and a high, strong brown. Her dark hair floated around her and disappeared into the bottom of the frame. She appeared to be asleep, and didn’t stir when Moira traced the gold-plated name on the frame: Isolt Sayre. When she was younger she would stare at that portrait for hours, thinking how strange it was that some of the same blood ran through their veins when she felt so unremarkable, so normal.

The inside of her room was much better than she expected. Some of her belongings from before—like relics from another era—were still there. A box of toys in the corner, her old toy broom, shoes several sizes too small. The bed was already made with her extra bedding from back home, her clothes hanging in the closet and the picture from her bedside table sitting on the somewhat tattered dresser. She smiled at the waving figures in it and blew them a kiss before pulling open the curtains and staring out the window onto the street below. Cars were bustling by, a few strangers straggling home or on to the next bar.

It was strange, how it was so different here, but the same. She was thousands of miles away from where she’d spent most of her life, but she couldn’t help but feel in another sense that she was finally home, where she was supposed to be, rotting stairs and all.

+++

Moira was awoken the next morning by a burst of music—classical, Chopin (quite competent for a muggle, according to Aunt Elizabeth)—and a flood of warm summer light. Her bedroom door had been thrust inward with a force only her aunt could muster so early in the morning, and it seemed that every window in the house had been opened, sucking out the bottled air that had been stagnant in the house for years and replacing it with the tree-rustled wind from the street.

“Get up, sleeping beauty, time to clean!” she called as she breezed through the room like a whirlwind, duster floating in the air behind her, making haphazard swipes and the mantles and cobwebs in the corners.

Moira pulled herself out of bed—covers long since kicked off into a heap in the corner, her skin sticky from the muggy August air—and changed into the oldest cotton dress she could find that wouldn’t be missed if the cleaning took its toll on the fabric. She wound her long, dark hair into a bun at the top of her head, and made her way downstairs (hop over 12, skip over 9, and clear the bottom 4 with a perfect landing). 

The place was already unrecognizable. The front door was open to the busy street, dust and other unidentifiables billowing out onto the sidewalk, but none of the passerbys seemed remotely phased by the clouds of muck that should have been engulfing them. In the parlor the sheets had all been removed and a club was beating itself relentlessly against the cushions, plumes of lint and dust floating into the air. The walls that had been stained with soot and dirt were scrubbed clean and were once again the creamy white she remembered from her childhood.

“Watch it!” Moira cried as a broom, furiously sweeping from the kitchen, rammed into her on its path to the door. It paused as though to swivel back at her, shaking its handle before continuing on its mission. 

The parlor was looking much better from the night before. The floorboards had been scrubbed (a towel was now spiraling across the wooden surface, making sure there was no hint of moisture left) and the fireplace scoured, the engraved marble surface of it white once again now that the layers of soot and dirt had been expunged. The chandelier hanging from the center of the room was lit—with magic or actual electricity she wasn’t sure—and sparkling, crystals swaying in the breeze circulating through the house. In the very center of the room, standing on the oak coffee table in her long emerald robes, wiry hair fanned out around her head, wand clutched in her hand, arms waving like the conductor of some janitorial orchestra. 

“Almost done,” she said, not taking her eyes off the eqipment. “Don’t even try it, mop!” she yelled, pointing her wand at the tool that had started violently swatting at the duster, floating above it in the air, spraying water across the freshly cleaned floor. It collapsed to the floor, water evaporating with another flick of her wrist. “Honestly.”

“It looks nice,” I said, as the rest of the equipment marched themselves back into the broom cupboard until they were needed again.  
She didn’t respond, but jerked her head to the mantle. “The post was for you this morning.” 

Moira walked over, careful not to slip on the slick floor, and picked up the crinkled envelope leaning against a picture of Elizabeth and her mom when they were kids with a stern looking woman in her late 40’s. They were all dressed in plain, somber clothes, and a sinister looking stone manor rose behind them in the distance. When Moira looked at that picture, she could understand how Aunt Elizabeth turned out the way she did, and why she and Moira’s mother hadn’t seen each other that often. What Moira could remember of her mother—even during the war, when things were at their darkest—were smiles and hugs. Bedtime stories. Walks together in the evenings. Making breakfast for her dad in the mornings before he went to work that he’d always eat, no matter how badly she messed up. She couldn’t envision that woman—who was now giving her a stern look down the bridge of her nose while little Daphne twirled the skirt of her dress and gave a toothless grin—doing any of those things.

The envelope looked like it had been through a lot, the edges crinkled and smooshed, but she could still clearly make out on the cover:

Ms. Moira Stone  
27 Kildare Place  
Dulblin,  
Ireland

She sliced it open as evenly as she could, and slid out the parchment from inside, carefully unfolding it and reading it twice over, to be sure she understood everything. Underneath the familiar symbol (even students from the U.S. knew enough about their U.K. counterparts to recognize it on sight) was a brief letter reading:

Dear Ms. Stone,

We are pleased to inform you that there is a place available for you at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As a transfer student, you will be sorted upon arrival. Please find the enclosed list of all necessary books and equipment. 

Term begins on 1 September.  
As your aunt has previously indicated your attendance, no response is required.

Yours sincerly,

Minerva McGonagall  
Deputy Headmistress

Once she was was sure she had read it correctly (there wasn’t much to read) she folded it up, and pulled out the second sheet of paper, on which was scrawled a list of books and supplies for 6th years.  
“Flesh eating trees of the world?” she muttered, glancing over the list for her 7 N.E.W.T. level classes and the resulting supplies she would need. Most of it was the same as it had been at Ilvermorny, though she suspected some of the measument systems would be different. 

“Let me see,” he aunt said, grabbing the list from her hand before she could answer. She gazed at it critically, tutting her tongue as she read the list. “We have most of the supplies on hand, though you could do with a new cauldron, and you’ll need to get fitted for new robes, of course.” She kept looking at it, and pursed her lips. “Good luck with Severus. I don’t know what Dumbledore was thinking taking him on after everything…a public imagine nightmare. Horace wasn’t terrible in my time. He always loved Daphne and me, probably because of Isolt, but it had its perks.”

Moira’s brow creased, not following, but was used to that when Elizabeth was speaking.

“We’ll go tomorrow morning. Make a day of it. I need to deal with some things at Gringott’s anyway, and you’ve still got your account there, as well.”

Moira remembered Gringott’s, at least. Her mom used to take here there when she was little. She’d been terrified of the tunnels , plunging into the darkness. She’d liked looking at the vaults though, and the abundant stacks of gold and silver and relics glinting as her mother riffled through them before taking her for a Sunday at the ice cream parlor before going home, sometimes letting her look at the animals or sweets as they strolled around and killed some time. 

“Ok,” she said, not letting her excitement spill out. It’d been a long time since she’d visited Diagon Alley.


End file.
